The role of intelligence in regulating our inner world – understanding instincts impulses and mind

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
in the next session, are there any questions? What do we mean by instinct, impulse and intelligence, first these three things so instinct is basically a bodily response for self preservation all living beings have instincts so if I touch my hand over here and say by chance there is electricity over here I feel a current I will move my hand if I feel hot I will move my hand so in these cases in the case of instinct we don’t think just act and this sort of action is actually good, it’s a bodily response for our protection, at the same time there are some situations in which we unthinkingly act right, a body is prompted or programmed to act in the right way for protecting itself but there are other situations where we unthinkingly act wrong so for example here when we get the second example, I will give in both ways so when we smell food immediately we survive it that’s just the body’s mechanism by which the digestive fluids are generated and then we can digest the food properly but the impulse is more of the mind’s pushing us towards things if things are enjoyed there also when we act impulsively there is not much thinking that is done an alcoholic as soon as the alcoholic sees a bar or a bottle immediately undrinks so here it’s not so, it’s not needed for survival but it’s just automatically done and based on the kind of life we have lived, all of us will have different impulses so in both the commonality in instinct and impulses that we act without thinking but instincts are often protective and necessary for the body whereas impulses are often counterproductive the mind I have to do this, I do it and then it turns out not so good now at one level intelligence means to understand the difference between the impulse and the instinct we have to act instinctively on many occasions but we don’t want to act impulsively so which actions to do by default which actions to do without with due deliberation that discernment is what comes by intelligence so for example when we see food at that time it’s a natural bodily reaction that our tongue salivates and our body gets ready for receiving food food is necessary for the body so in that sense the salivation is an instinctive response but sometimes say if I have got diabetes and I see some sweet item now at that time when my tongue starts salivating, my mind starts craving that acting on that is undesirable so that food is itself a necessity but a particular choice of food may not be necessary so impulse when it comes it pushes us towards certain things and intelligence means to understand what is the difference what is coming from the impulse what is coming from the instinct and then to choose properly so again one could be with respect to the choice of food, another could also be with respect to quantity of food food is necessary but our impulse of good food is keep eating and then that may be unhealthy so in that case to be able to discern that is intelligence so now another way normally we talk about the mind and the intelligence so we can say broadly speaking the mind is the source of the impulses and the mind often makes us misunderstand things so if there is one carry home message from this whole retreat that is this next sentence intelligence means to understand how our mind makes us misunderstand so our mind makes us misunderstand many things and this misunderstanding which comes how to spot it and how to avoid it, how to correct it that is the role of the intelligence sometimes say some people are trying to learn car driving and then in many cars if you see the accelerator and the brake is just next to each other and say if at a particular point you come to a red signal and the next people are slowing down and the trainer next to you says slow down and then instead of pressing the brake, the person presses the accelerator so the car moves forward so there is an immediate response that is required but in this case the immediate response turns out to be wrong so the instructor may have given the instruction slow down but the instructor may even say press the brake but somehow my foot goes to the accelerator and I press the accelerator so that may happen because I panic that may happen because I am not thinking clearly for whatever reason so normally when we see some danger we will press the brake and anybody who presses the accelerator says what are you doing press the brake but actually the mind does this opposite thing whenever we come close to an object of attachment we may resolve I am not going to do this but as soon as we come close to an object of attachment instead of pressing the brake we press the accelerator so we move forward towards it and this is how in our world the mind makes us act wrongly so the intelligence needs to understand how the mind is making me misunderstand I don’t have will power, I am so foolish, I am formal, all that is okay at one level but we have to understand how the mind is making us misunderstand and then we can correct it